Polar bears may get special protection

Considered threatened or endangered in other parts of the world, Canada’s polar bears could soon enjoy special protection under Canadian law. The federal government has proposed designating the bears as a “species of special concern” in the Species at Risk Act.

Experts and advocates say the move is positive, but including the polar bear in the Species at Risk Act will not protect it from the most serious threat to its vanishing habitat: climate change.

There are more than 15,000 polar bears roaming Canada’s north (or 60 per cent of the global population). They are divided into 13 different populations based on their general geographic location. Research suggests four of these populations are at risk of becoming endangered or going extinct.

“It sounds simple, but in reality the No. 1 threat to polar bears is vanishing sea ice,” said Peter Ewins, a senior species officer at the World Wildlife Fund in Toronto. Protecting the animal’s habitat would require action on a much broader scale, he said.

The sheer size of the habitat is also very difficult to manage, said Andrew Derocher, a polar bear biologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

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“We can’t manage sea ice habitat other than on a global scale … [Climate change] is not something that we’re seriously addressing either in Canada or globally,” Derocher said.

In addition, he said, the act’s one-size-fits-all approach to designating a species at risk does not consider the variations in polar bear populations across the country. For example, the polar bear populations around the western and southern parts of Hudson Bay are shrinking while polar bear populations in the High Arctic are thriving.

Support for slating the polar bear as a species of special concern has varied across Canada. In 2010, the government of Nunavut reneged its support, while the Inuit of the western Arctic unanimously support the idea Ewins said.

The polar bear plays an important role in the economy, society and spiritual life of Canada’s North. By law, aboriginal people can hunt them within certain quotas. Derocher said hunting is not a major threat to the health of the species.

“The final decision as to whether (the) polar bear will be listed under the Species at Risk Act is anticipated in November 2011,” a spokesman for Environment Canada told Postmedia News on Wednesday.

As a species of special concern — the lowest risk level allowed by the act — a management plan would have to be devised within three years to keep the animal from becoming endangered or going extinct.

Provinces and territories are responsible for managing polar bear quotas. Provincial wildlife protection acts vary in their ranking of the polar bear’s risk. Manitoba and Ontario, for example, already consider the polar bear threatened, rather than a species of “special concern.”